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11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School

Posted by Soulskill on from the hope-he's-salaried dept.

alphadogg points out a story about 11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old administrator suddenly left. Penn provides technical support, selects software, and teaches his classmates about computers. From NetworkWorld: "The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there was an ungodly amount of computer viruses and spam, so he pressed the school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection. 'These computers are so old they don't support all antivirus programs,' Penn says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000."

2 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why pay for the software? by sapphire+wyvern · · Score: 5, Informative

    AVG Free is free only for personal use. To deploy it across an entire network of computers belonging to a budgeted organisation, rather than purchase a license, is abusing Grisoft's generosity. It's not really excused by the fact that this is an educational organisation rather than commercial. I quote:

    AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single computer use only. The use of AVG Free within any organization (including non-profit organizations) or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.

    If you don't want to pay for your AV, why not go with ClamAV rather than leech off Grisoft's update servers? The restrictions of AVG Free (won't run on server OSes, won't scan network drives, etc) probably mean it's not optimal for the school network anyway.

    That said... I use AVG Free myself for my personal computer. It really is good, and I'm grateful to Grisoft for it. Oh: one other thing. AVG Free is free as in beer, but it's not open source. I suppose some people might care about that.

  2. Re:Translation: 11-year old's parents get him a jo by JonWan · · Score: 4, Informative

    An 11-year old isn't legal to work, there are these pesky child labor laws in this country (duh).

    The child labor laws don't stop you from hiring children.(tho your insurance might complain) They limit the types of jobs and the hours they can work. I have a 17 year old working for me at my store when she started she was 16 just above the cutoff point but still regulated as to what kinds of jobs she could do. She only works weekends for a few hours a day but it gets her use to the idea of getting to work on time and doing her job (well when she's not being a giggly teenage girl).
    You can find the rules here:
    http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/